anŋūta
The second sentence of the 2nd Inverse Relay text:
pa jarēþa anŋūta;
Very simple. We already know that jarēþa means “journey”, and pa denotes a whole::part relationship or a thing::attribute relationship and stative nouns are usually attributes, so “The journey is/was …” whatever anŋūta means. It means “difficult” as in “not easy” and “requiring effort”.
pa jarēþa anŋūta;
The journey was difficult.
anpēxena
The fourth line of the LCC3 Relay Text:
se jīxōsa cī ānen anwālte annāra il anpēxeni ī ñi rūjapēxa;
anpēxena means “last, final”. Here it appears after il, a marker denoting a time phrase, and in the collective, though there is no collective noun in the sentence for it to modify. So, either it is modifying an elided noun like anīli “moments” or it’s doing something else. Since il also acts as a conjunction, (usually a coordinating conjunction, but this is poetry,) let’s see if that makes more sense. If so, and if ī which I will discuss tomorrow can also be parsed with the refrain, then anpēxeni can be modifying the elided “waves”. Of course, putting the object of the relational at the very front of a clause is unusual.
la liēn sū anālhāri anālri jahāwa ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa;
la jāo pa anhē ja ñi antāoni antāλi rūjapēxa;
ñi nāra lemōra ñi antāoni antāλi rūjapēxa;
se jīxōsa cī ānen anwālte annāra il anpēxeni ī ñi rūjapēxa;
I am at the edge of the stormy sea and the breaking waves move away.
This is good, that the wild waves move away.
All my dreams become the wild waves moving away.
Let’s passionately look back — moving away.
antāλa
The second line of the LCC3 Relay Text:
la jāo pa anhē ja ñi antāoni antāλi rūjapēxa;
There’s only one unfamiliar word, here, and that is antāλi, a stative noun modifying antāoni in the changing refrain. antāλa means “having the qualities of chaos” so “chaotic, wild, unordered”. The first clause, la jāo pa anhē means “this has goodness”. It is followed by the relative pronoun ja, and then the refrain. So, “This is good, that the wild waves move away”.
la liēn sū anālhāri anālri jahāwa ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa;
la jāo pa anhē ja ñi antāoni antāλi rūjapēxa;
I am at the edge of the stormy sea and the breaking waves move away
This is good, that the wild waves move away
Tomorrow the third line.
anhūwa
Still on the first line of the LCC3 Relay Text:
la liēn sū anālhāri anālri jahāwa ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa;
anhūwa means “broken into pieces” and in this line it modifies antāoni “waves”. antāoni anhūwi is “the breaking waves” and ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa is “the breaking waves move away”. The phrase ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa really ought to be its own sentence, but since this is poetry, it is simply glommed on to the previous clause in a way that assumes an “and”.
la liēn sū anālhāri anālri jahāwa ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa;
I am at the edge of the stormy sea and the breaking waves move away.
anālre
Continuing with our theme, today we start on the text for the LCC3 Relay. The original text was a poem contributed by David J Peterson. I have mixed feelings about translating poetry. I’ve never been good at poetry, even in a conlang. On the other hand, it does provide an opportunity to mess with the syntax and vocabulary. And having a refrain means less to translate, which can be a plus or a minus.
So, the first line:
la liēn sū anālhāri anālri jahāwa ñi antāoni anhūwi rūjapēxa;
Unfamiliar words include anālri, jahāwa, and anhūwi.
anālri is the stative anālre inflected to modify anālhāri “ocean”. anālre means “having to do with storms, having the quality of a storm” or “stormy”, so anālhāri anālri is “stormy ocean”.
Tomorrow jahāwa.
anwāna
Continuing with the first sentence of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
il talōnte tiēlen ñi le rā jahāwekien nō il ñi lerāka jawāna sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl;
anwāna means “the quality of being out of place and therefore wrong” and appears here as an inanimate singular noun modifying lerāka. lerāka is simply the familiar jarāka inflected as a possessed noun. This is perfectly okay, if a bit informal. Together, lerāka jawāna means something like a “wrong step” or a “false step” meaning one that was interfered with somehow.
sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl is “on a rock that could talk” (a rock which has the attribute able-to-talk), and is the location of the wrong step, implying one tripped over this rock.
“Yesterday I was going along the beach, when I tripped over a rock that could talk.”
antēnnā
Before I get to this word, a note on the next several weeks, if not months.
Every so often the conlanging community gets together and has a relay. A relay is a game we play, much like Telephone, where one receives a text in someone’s conlang, translates it into one’s own conlang, and then passes the text with sufficient grammar and vocabulary notes along to the next person. Some people believe in faithfully translating whatever they get, even if it is somewhat (or quite a bit 🙂 ) nonsensical. Others, and this includes me, believe in fixing up any text they get so that it makes sense to a person who speaks their conlang. This includes more than fixing grammar errors. It can involve changing all sorts of things when the speakers of the conlang are non-human or have a vastly different conculture than the creator of the text.
In honor of the relay that we are currently having, (the 18th Conlang Relay, subscribe to the Relay mailing list for news of this and subsequent relays), I will go through most of the as yet unblogged vocabulary for the LCC2 Relay Text, the LCC3 Relay Text, and the 17th Conlang Relay Text. By the time I am through I may be able to blog the 18th Conlang Relay text, whatever it turns out to be. 😉
So, the LCC2 Relay Text was a story about a talking rock. I had a word for talking as in currently speaking, but not a word for talking as in able-to-talk. Hence, this word. It is derived from the same root as the word for “story”, which I haven’t blogged yet.
This word occurs in the title and throughout the story, generally in inanimate singular to agree with jakīþa “rock”.
xiēn jē jakīþa jatēnnā;
Concerning the talking rock.
anhūwīke
Sentence ten of the Babel text:
ē ñamma jāo ā λi ārōn ī ñamma sāim makkepōlien rā anmārwi āñ pēxa ī sū jamāonre ñamma jalāīke jahūwīke;
As mentioned yesterday, stative nouns take the inflection of the noun they modify. Here anhūwīke is modifying jalāīke “the building of [something inanimate and singular]”. anhūwīke means “deliberately ended or broken” and so jalāīke jahūwīke means “deliberate ending of the building of something” and the something, as we know from previous sentences, is the city and tower of Babel.
One more sentence and one more post and we are done with the Babel text.
anlāīke
Sentence ten of the Babel text:
ē ñamma jāo ā λi ārōn ī ñamma sāim makkepōlien rā anmārwi āñ pēxa ī sū jamāonre ñamma jalāīke jahūwīke;
Most of this is familiar from previous posts. ē ñamma jāo ā λi ārōn is a straightforward “And the Lord did this” and ñamma sāim makkepōlien rā anmārwi āñ pēxa is “they became scattered throughout the world” and sū jamāonre ñamma jalāīke jahūwīke is “at the city…” jalāīke jahūwīke.
jalāīke is an inanimate singular form of the stative noun anlāīke, which means “being made or built, the process of making or building”. Generally stative nouns modify other nouns and take on the same inflection of the noun they modify (because they are referring to the same entity as the noun they modify, so they have the same inflection.) Here, however, there is no other noun readily in evidence. So jalāīke can either refer to the something (inanimate and singular) made or built or to the making or building of something inanimate and singular. Considering this is a story about the building of a city (and the Tower of Babel), that is what jalāīke must be referring to.
As for jahūwīke, we will discuss that one tomorrow.
ankewōra
We’re on sentence nine of the Babel text:
il tamma ien ē ñi liēn rā āke aþ ñalla anwaxāon tō tūaþ ñi anxiēna nīkamma sāim ankewōra cī;
ankewōra is a word that applies to liquids and to mental states and means that the liquid or state used to exist but doesn’t now, likely because it has all been used already. So, “emptied” of a glass of water, or “used up” of an amount of oil, or simply “ended, finished” of a mental state. In this sentence it applies to the mental state of anxiēna “understanding”.
“Then he said: I will go there and I will make confusion in order that the understanding between them becomes ended.”